THE GAMBLER

Liberals of the stripe that recently "outed" Bill Bennett's gambling either honestly misunderstand conservatives, or they willfully misunderstand us. For all their preening about Bennett and his vice, they reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of convervatives (social as well as policital) and our public advocacy for morality. They think that because we believe in and promote morality, then we should be perfect. Otherwise we're hypochrites.

That's simple-minded idiocy. One of the most admired figures in Christianity and therefore the "moralizers" of our time is the apostle Paul. Before he took that name, he went by another--Saul. As Saul, he was a murderer. He went around catching and killing Christians. He was an educated man, one of the Jewish elites and a citizen of Rome. He knew what he was doing. Once he became a Christian, he changed his name to Paul and never killed another Christian as long as he lived. In fact he died a martyr, killed for a cause he once sought to exterminate.

But Paul continually described himself as "chief of sinners." He knew, based on his understanding of Christian redemption, that his murders were forgiven. Why then did he call himself "chief of sinners?" Because he recognized that being a Christian doesn't automatically make one perfect. In fact it doesn't ever make one perfect, at least in this life, as Paul made clear in his letter to the Christians of Rome. It does make one aware that one isn't perfect, daily. That awareness made Paul humble, and caused him to dub himself "chief of sinners."

In modern times, we Christians face near constant attack (mostly from the political left) for being, variously, moralizers, hypochrites, bores, prudes, inquisitors, liars, frauds, killjoys, fools--whatever epithet comes to mind and happens to fit a given situation. You know what--all of the charges, and many more beside them, are true. We are all of those things, because we are all human. The difference between us and our accusers is that we're aware of our shortcomings, and were already aware of them before anyone accused us of anything. And we're working to overcome them. And we hope others decide to overcome their faults, too. That's part of why we promote morality--to help others, and because it will make a better society. We often come across as mean, ungodly, whatever. That's because we aren't perfect.

We're not perfect, and we know it. Bill Bennett isn't perfect, and he knows it. He knew it before The Washington Monthly and Newsweek published their "gotcha" pieces. That doesn't make him any less worthy a person to expound and promote virtue. If sinless perfection is the requirement, none of us can ever pronounce anything right or wrong ever again.

That's why I don't think the relevation that he gambles is that big a deal. Do I wish he didn't gamble? Of course, and so does his own wife. But it is his choice. Paul himself took a view of human activity that would allow for Bennett's behavior, provided it doesn't endanger his family and doesn't knowingly or intentionally cause any other Christian to fall in their faith. His gambling clearly hasn't endangered his family, but it might cause some Christians to stumble, so perhaps Bennett will come to the conclusion that gambling isn't worth it. Perhaps not. But it's his call, in light of his own relationship to his family and to his God.

As for The Washington Monthly, I think its credibility is seriously on the line. In the past couple of months, it engaged in ridiculous conspiracy-mongering with Josh Marshall's "Practice to Deceive" and has now participated in this Bennett hit piece. In both cases, the Monthly has asserted that something was a secret that wasn't--Marshall said the Bush administration's Middle East policy was some secret scheme, when in fact the central players' beliefs about the Middle East have been in the public record for years. Now the Monthly outs Bill Bennett on something that he has never made any secret of. In both cases, the entire point of the piece is to score political points against people the Monthly's editors don't like, and in both cases the Monthly has been dishonest in its accusations.

I think The Washington Monthly and its editors should learn to practice some of that morality that Bill Bennett preaches.

UPDATE: I think this is a fair take on the Bennett affair, from Dr. James Dobson. I assume Andrew Sullivan will spin it into some example of theocrat (he's using that word to replace "theocon" for some reason) intolerance.